The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday is expected to formally wind down its hantavirus response, nearly two months after an outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic triggered an international effort to contain a rare strain that left three people dead and infected several others.
“Protecting Americans is our highest responsibility. CDC’s hantavirus response officially concludes June 24, 2026,” acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement.
The announcement will free up considerable resources at the CDC that since early May have been dedicated toward containing the outbreak. More than 100 CDC staffers were assigned to hantavirus response at the height of the scare. The conclusion of the response efforts comes days after a 42-day quarantine at a specialized facility in Nebraska for American cruise ship passengers exposed to the rare Andes strain came to an end Sunday.
More than a dozen Americans were initially housed at the Nebraska facility. Some left the facility earlier this month after the Trump administration asked their home states to agree to continued monitoring, including round-the-clock supervision to ensure compliance with quarantine requirements. But eight others remained in Nebraska through the end of the quarantine period, including one who alleged the government was holding her there against her will.
The CDC maintained throughout the outbreak that the risk to the overall American public remained low. But while hantavirus doesn’t normally spread between humans, the Andes strain, primarily found in Chile and Argentina, is the exception. The strain can cause a severe and often fatal lung disease.
White House officials said that risk, coupled with the virus’s long incubation period, justified enforcing the full 42-day quarantine despite criticism from some public health experts, who argued the measure was unnecessary because nearly all of the American cruise ship passengers remained asymptomatic throughout their stay in Nebraska.
An extensive interagency effort also went toward contact tracing, the officials added, after it was learned that passengers from other countries had disembarked from the cruise ship and made their own way home via commercial air.
The administration says its response shows it can handle public health threats despite backlash from critics over massive cuts to the CDC and other agencies. The simultaneous hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks renewed scrutiny over the Trump administration’s public health strategy, including its withdrawal from the World Health Organization and dismantling of U.S. Agency for International Development. The U.S. continued to coordinate with the WHO on both outbreaks, and top officials maintained the administration’s federal response wasn’t hampered by the changes.
“This response demonstrates the strength of a coordinated effort to detect and defend against infectious disease threats that occur outside of our borders,” Bhattacharya said.